First Grow Chronicle

Long story short, long time connoisseur first time grower. Now that I'm a certified medical marijuana patients by the state of California, figure I'll try my hand at being a green thumb. After hours of reading and research of my own strategy so here we go :

Materials

Self watering planter
3 1/2 gallon black bucket
1/8 inch nylon rope
Tetra 10 gallon air pump w/ tubing & air stone
300w MarsHydro LED grow light
4x23w 6500K Phillips CFL bulbs
Fox Farm Ocean Forest / Perlite soil blend
24x48x72 grow tent
6" 240 cfm duct fan
Gorilla Glue #4 clone

Just having some basic set up or one that I could buy myself I decided to go ahead and go DIY and build my own and make it more personal. I removed the bottom portion of the self watering planter/pot and cut four pieces of 18 inch nylon rope and fed it through the air holes in the bottom of the pot and to the reservoir using the Wick Method. I took a handsaw and cut a hole in the lid of the bucket's at the bottom of the self watering container extends about 5 inches below the top of the bucket. The design of the pot allows it to sit right on top for easy removal and access to the reservoir. The air pump does the obvious.

I started her last Friday, March 4 so it's been six days and attached are pictures. Comments and suggestions are welcomed. Long time lurker, so not exactly new to the community. Look forward to being a part of the community.

flipped lights 7 days ago...

Im curious to see if these wicks can keep up after budset.I have a bad feeling about this..

A little taller than I anticipated...

Nice plants. Interested to see an LED grow.

2 weeks after flip

Looking good!
Do you know who supplied the glue to your dispensary? Super kuts?

archingfob said:

Looking good!
Do you know who supplied the glue to your dispensary? Super kuts?

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Beach Collective...not sure origin, but it's a reputable collective.

This is my first grow so any tips would be appreciated. To be quite honest I haven't added many nutes at all. FF Grow Big and Big Bloom, bout it. Ph of water always sitting around 5.5-5.8 range. Temp 73-77 lights on, 67-69 lights off. Humidity usually 45ish %. Everything I've read (which is more than my entire college reading) shows I'm pretty solid in all these factors, but I'm still such a noob I'm not sure exactly of the process involved...

jester2trife said:

This is my first grow so any tips would be appreciated. To be quite honest I haven't added many nutes at all. FF Grow Big and Big Bloom, bout it. Ph of water always sitting around 5.5-5.8 range. Temp 73-77 lights on, 67-69 lights off. Humidity usually 45ish %. Everything I've read (which is more than my entire college reading) shows I'm pretty solid in all these factors, but I'm still such a noob I'm not sure exactly of the process involved...

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Id be throwing some type of nutient at her. See what she can take.

archingfob said:

Id be throwing some type of nutient at her. See what she can take.

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If you don't mind me asking, please elaborate...

jester2trife said:

If you don't mind me asking, please elaborate...

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I'm doing my first indoor grow but I've been doing outdoor for many harvests. For my outdoor I feed any type of bloom nutrient as soon as I start seeing an accumulation of white pistils. I like to bump up my nutrient feeding every so often.

jester2trife said:

If you don't mind me asking, please elaborate...

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Don't start adding nutrients willy nilly. Your plant looks fantastic and is not showing signs of needing any nutrients from what I can see. Ocean Forest typically contains everything you need to complete your grow without additives. If I were you on my first grow I'd stick to just watering my plants and seeing how they turn out in your organic soil. If you start adding nutes now you can compromise your harvest by over-fertilizing. Not worth the risk your first time around.

Try your next grow in coco coir, a medium that requires you to manually add nutrients the whole grow. I learned a lot from growing in coco and would recommend it to anyone who is looking to expand their growing knowledge.

archingfob said:

Id be throwing some type of nutient at her. See what she can take.

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I wouldn't, the plant looks fine and is already in Ocean Forest soil. Please don't encourage extra steps where they aren't necessary and could result in someone messing up their first grow.

Cyrus420 said:

I wouldn't, the plant looks fine and is already in Ocean Forest soil. Please don't encourage extra steps where they aren't necessary and could result in someone messing up their first grow.

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Soo adding nutrients is extra?
I've read many posts where people add nutrients to Ocean Forest.
You should probably take your own advice. I won't be taking yours.

archingfob said:

Soo adding nutrients is extra?
I've read many posts where people add nutrients to Ocean Forest.
You should probably take your own advice. I won't be taking yours.

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It's a safe recommendation for a new grower, not advice. I add nutes to my Ocean Forest but only because I've gone around the grow a few times now and understand how to do so. I'm trying to help new growers avoid the same mistakes I did, like using nutes when they have no need to. Jumping full tilt in works for very few people as so I'm a big advocate for baby steps.